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The Master slowed the helicopters. A glance at the altimeter showed him 1,965 feet. The compass in its binnacle gave him direction. "Pit number one!" he sharply exclaimed into the phone connecting therewith. "Yes, sir!" came back the observer's voice. "Keep a sharp eye out for Niss'rosh! Remember, two red lights showing there!" "Yes, sir. I'll report as soon as I pick them up."
God, but I'm glad to see you!" Their hands met and clasped. The Master led Bohannan to the table and gestured toward a chair. Bohannan threw his hat on the table with a large, sweeping gesture typical of his whole character, and sat down. And for a moment, they looked at each other in silence. A very different type, this, from the dark, sinewed master of Niss'rosh.
Clubs, athletics, gambling he grumbled something savage as his thoughts turned to such trivialities. And into his aquiline face came something the look of an eagle, trapped, there in that eagle's nest of his. Suddenly the Master of Niss'rosh came to a decision. He returned, clapped his hands thrice, sharply, and waited.
Their brown heads, peeping intermittently from the wady and the dunes, were evasive as a mirage. The Master laughed bitterly. "A devil of a place!" he exclaimed, his blood up for a fight, but all circumstances baffling him. A very different man, this, from the calm, impersonal victim of ennui at Niss'rosh, or even from the unmoved individual when the liner had first swooped away from New York.
Windows boldly fronted all four cardinal compass-points huge, plate-glass windows that gave a view unequaled in its sweep and power. The room seemed an eagle's nest perched on the summit of a man-made crag. The Arabic name that he had given it Niss'rosh meant just that. Singular place indeed, well-harmonized with its master.
Men are going out that way, tonight! And I stick here like an old, done relic, cooped in Niss'rosh imprisoned in this steel and glass cage of my own making!" Suddenly he wheeled, flung himself into the big chair by the table and dragged the faun's head over to him.
Down plunged the searchlight, picking Niss'rosh out of the gloom. Through the floor-glass, the Master could descry it clearly. He slowed, circled, playing with vacuum-lift, helicopters, engines, as if they had been keys of a familiar instrument. Presently the liner hovered, poised, sank, remained a little over 750 feet above the observatory on the roof-top.
Leather trousers and leggings completed his costume. The collar of the jacket, turned up, met the helmet. Of his face, only the chin and lower part of the cheeks remained visible. The silence tautened, stretched to the breaking-point. All at once the master of Niss'rosh demanded, incisively: "Your name, sir?" "Captain Alfred Alden, of the R.A.F." "Royal Air Force man, eh?
As for the western side of Niss'rosh, this space between the two broad windows that looked out over the light-spangled city, the Hudson and the Palisades, was occupied by a magnificent Mercator's Projection of the world. This projection was heavily annotated with scores of comments penciled by a firm, virile hand.
The soul of him was thrilling with great visions. "I'm with you! Whither bound?" The Master smiled oddly, as he answered in a low, even tone: "To Paradise or Hell!" One week from that night, twenty-seven other men assembled in the strange eyrie of Niss'rosh, nearly a thousand feet above the city's turmoil.
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